Shining Light on Dark Matter

Two Powers’ pieces from the ‘Inward Eye’ show: ‘Traveler’ (left)
and ‘Tippy.’

For 60 years, Harry Powers has been creating mosaics, mosaic murals, paintings on canvas or glass or aluminum, sculptures of aluminum, bronze, or acrylic, and more.

Despite this diversity, Powers work shows a “unified aesthetic, with ideas that are so consistent,” says Preston Metcalf, curator of ‘Harry Powers: From the Inward Eye,’ which opens this Saturday July 28 at the Triton Museum in Santa Clara. The reception is 7 p.m. Friday July 27.

Powers uses his art “not to create a postcard, not to have a pretty image, but to convey an idea,” Metcalf says. “And the art becomes a metaphor for who we are as a species.”

Powers, who taught art for 30 years at San Jose State, has been inspired by astronomy, by dark matter, by “primal cultures,” he says. The exhibit will fill the Triton with 50 works, mostly recent but some classics as well.

Powers says his art is characterized by “the use of light. I design the surface to play with the light…And I like material, paintings with a thick, rich texture. I like subtle transitions of tonality. A lot of patina on sculpture. I like those subtle changes.”